Shroud of Mists
by i'm finding i hate nowhere
Summary: This is an SVU/Supernatural AU crossover. Set in Azeroth - Lich King time period. WTF, HAVE WE GONE INSANE? Yes.
1. Prologue

_**DISCLAIMER: **This is fanfiction._

_**A/N: **This is an experimental collaboration between _find-nowhere_ and _tell them i hate them_. We're alternating chapters and we'll be updating on Dreamwidth before we update here, so if you want to read ahead then go to our profile page and click the link there. This is actually a three-way crossover, but we can only put it in two categories here. It is SVU/Supernatural/World of Warcraft - no joke. Oh, oh! And this chapter was written by find-nowhere if you care to know._

**_RATED T: _**_Ridiculous violence? General ridiculousness? Death, misery, feelings._

**Prologue**

The young hunter awoke from something like a deep and dreamless sleep to find himself running through Terrokar Forest as fast as his legs would carry him with his hooves clapping loudly on the ground. He couldn't recall what he was running from, or why he had begun running exactly. There was a huge gaping hole in his memory. He had been in Shattrath and he had seen a man, or a creature, or something, and he had followed it. He had recently heard mutterings among the elders that a strange man was taking children, and he believed the man he saw might be the culprit. He followed it out beyond the city walls, and there his memory stopped. He felt he had seen something, but he could no longer remember what.

Now, he was running back toward Shattrath and he ran for his life. Sweat beaded down his purple-skinned forehead and the tendrils from his face flapped wildly behind him. He bounded gracefully over the uneven ground. He just wanted to get back within the walls or to catch sight of one of the guards mounted on an elekk outside. Shattrath was not really sanctuary because he was one of the Broken draenei, but it was more sanctuary than this damned forest. He looked over his shoulder and he saw the creature he had been curiously following. It chased him now. He looked ahead again, and then looked back once more. The thing did not appear to be moving whenever he looked, and yet it gained on him, and filled his heart with fear the likes of which he had not felt since being in the presence of Illidan Stormrage. This thing perhaps scared him more as if it were made of fear itself.

Still running, he shook his head. He knew he wasn't thinking clearly. Part of him wanted to turn and face this man, but he couldn't bring myself to do so. He looked back again and he stared at the blank white face of her pursuer. The creature was humanoid, but tall. Taller than even the largest tauren. He was thin and gangly, and he wore the strangest clothing, no armor. He was clad in black cloth pants and a white shirt, covered in a black jacket. Around his neck was an odd neck-piece, not a necklace or any other sort of trinket, but more cloth. The most haunting thing about this man was his blank face though, and the image of it burned into the hunter's mind. Was this some minion of the Lich King or perhaps a new recruit of the Burning Legion? He couldn't ask.

When he turned to face forward again, he tripped over a root and went flying. He landed on his knees. He braced himself with his hands, jamming his wrists and he struggled to get up, but before he could the monster was on him.

A balding dwarf and a graying furbolg found themselves sitting together at the World's End Tavern. The dwarf solemnly sipped a filtered draenic water, shying away from the strong drinks that he had been so fond of in his younger years. The furbolg, on the other hand, drank a dwarven stout voraciously, burped, and gruffly ordered another.

The dwarf's hay-day had long come to an end. He had once been a Windwarrior and then served a stint in the Explorer's Guild before finding himself stagnant in Shattrath City. He spent most of his time in the company of the rough furbolg vendor.

The furbolg typically roamed Lower City, selling odds and ends to travelers and sometimes the refugees. He went simply by the name Bobby, and despite the fact that he never seemed to leave Shattrath, he always acquired unique and rare items. He probably scammed them from those same Azerothian travelers. He also repaired weapons. Rumor had it, he had been a fair fighter at one point. How he had come to Shattrath, no one was certain.

"Cragen," he muttered to the dwarf in the Common language, "You heard the talk of the refugees lately?"

"Not really..."

"The kids are going missing."

"Probably kidnapped for slavery, Bobby. Nothing new."

He snorted and drank more. His keen hearing caused him to turn and then he said, "Cragen." The bear-man grunted and placed a huge paw on the dwarf's shoulder. He turned the man around to face the entrance, "Look."

"What?" All Cragen saw was a young Broken draenei stumbling in. Probably drunk and coming back to beg for more from the bartender. He had some open wounds, bleeding blue liquid onto his clothes. Probably from drunkenly falling down. Cragen couldn't even blame the Broken draenei for drinking himself into this stupor. He'd escaped the Burning Legion only to make it here where the rest of the draenei despised him and hardly anyone would give him the time of day.

The purple-skinned boy collapsed before reaching them. No one even bothered with him, except Bobby. The furbolg took a huge draught of his beer and then got up from his seat and went to help him up.

Cragen sighed and followed reluctantly.

Despite his obtrusive claws, the furbolg was delicate when handling the wounded Broken. He pulled some bandages and salve from one of his many bags and attempted to tend to the boy, but quickly found his wounds too severe. He had been attacked, mauled by something.

The Broken kept muttering over and over, "Tall man with no face...tall man with no face...he has taken the children...and is coming for...us all..."

Bobby looked at Cragen. The old dwarf slouched and seemed apathetic.

"I'm taking this boy to a doctor, then I'm gonna go talk to the other refugees. You can sit here and drink your draenic water if you want, but I'm gonna go." With minimal effort Bobby scooped up the Broken and headed out.

Cragen tossed some gold up onto the bar, grumbling about paying for the furbolg's drinks, and he trudged after the bear. The draenei had lost consciousness and hung limply in his fur-covered arms. The dwarf asked, "What do you plan to do, Bobby?"

"Find out what's going on around here..."

"Then what?"

"I know some people," he growled.


	2. Chapter 1

The night elf removed his leather gloves. He shivered and inched closer to the fire to warm himself, his deep blue skin bristling against the cold. The goblin innkeeper eyed him closely, no doubt preparing to turn him away if he didn't ask for a bed for the night or at least look like he was going to drop some silver on some mead.

"Flagon of mead," the elf said. "And some caribou." He dipped into his backpack for his coin bag, taking care not to make too much noise with it, lest another rogue get any ideas. He tore open the letter he'd retrieved from the mailbox outside. There were only two people who knew his whereabouts of late, and the handwriting on the envelope belonged to neither of them.

_Dear Odafin,_

_I know that these days you have favored Northrend. I hope you're staying safe, my friend. As safe as someone could be in that icy wasteland, at any rate._

_The refugees in Shattrath have been whispering. The children here are disappearing. My friend has been listening. I have too, if I'm going to be honest, but I'd rather not hear tell of another monster in Azeroth. Outland has its fair share already._

_Have you heard any rumblings in Dalaran? Maybe you are in touch with some adventurer who has seen something new in Icecrown. Maybe you yourself know something. The refugees are getting desperate, and who can blame them? Family is the only thing they have left and even that is being taken away._

_Safe travels, friend._

_Cragen_

It had been a long time since Fin had heard from the dwarf, and he wished the news could be happier. The dearth of good tidings had been what had driven him to Northrend in the first place. He'd felt that maybe his skills could be useful in defeating the Scourge. Useful though they were, everything around him seemed to be in a state of constant escalation with no resolution in sight. Endless intelligence quests only revealed that things in Icecrown were always, always worse than they seemed. The dozens of Scourge he had killed had had no visible effect on their numbers. To make things worse, the crews of _The Skybreaker_ and _Orgrim's Hammer, _locked in a pattern above the pit, could not resist firing volleys at each other occasionally, their frustration with the conditions on the ground no doubt exacerbating old racial tensions.

The goblins of K3, hungry for gold and often with an unsettling glint in their eyes, were a breath of fresh air.

He wrote a short note to Cragen saying that he was so far removed from anything like civilization that he hadn't seen a child in months, not even captured ones. _Could the slave trade be getting more active?_ he wondered in the letter. He thought for a moment about what he could do for Cragen. He couldn't help but notice, with a sinking heart, how strange it seemed that anyone should be concerned with anything but the Scourge, so far removed he was from such things. He – and others who ventured to Northrend, he was sure – had spent so much time battling the Lich King's forces that it was easy to forget that there was a reason for the fighting.

_I have a few contacts in other areas I will ask for you. I will ask them to respond directly to you, since __it is an unfortunate possibility that I may soon be rendered unable to relay their responses to you. I am ever-vigilant, and flesh wounds are only that – flesh wounds. Dalaran is a gryphon's flight away when the dangers become too much._

_Expect responses from my friends soon._

_Til next we meet, _

_Odafin_

He placed the letter in an envelope and sealed it with wax. Immediately, he went about writing another. It was strange but somehow encouraging to be rendering aid in a different way, one that didn't involve murder or physical peril (yet, anyway) and that could even transcend racial conflict. His friend Durin'Amas, a blood elf with the Shattered Sun Offensive, traveled often between continents, particularly between Shattrath City and the Eastern Kingdoms. If anyone was likely to have heard anything about missing children, it would be him.

_Munch_, he began his letter, using his friend's favored nickname. He didn't even notice that his mead-basted caribou had grown cold. _My apologies for falling out of touch. It will come as no surprise that letter-writing has often been the furthest thing from my mind during my time in Northrend_.


	3. Chapter 2

A draenei shaman paced the Crystal Hall of the Exodar anxiously. In the moments before, she received an odd letter signed by an old dwarf paladin she once traveled with - back when she traveled. She had settled in the Exodar to study under Farseer Nobundu and believed her adventuring days to be done. She was one of the shamans working to halt the mutations occurring on Azuremyst Isle as a result of the crashed ship.

She read over the letter several times to ensure that it said what she thought it did. The first thing that occurred to her was that the dwarf had fallen off the wagon and given in to the drink, but the more she read it, the more he seemed of sound mind.

__Dear Olivyya,__

__I hope you're finding yourself well on Azuremyst Isle, and I'm sorry to trouble you, but there have been odd whispers among the refugees in Shattrath. It seems that their children are disappearing one by one. The Aldor and Scryers are too busy with their squabbling to look into it, but it is not as if they care for the refugees as it is. Dare I say, a furbolg friend of mine believes it to be some new monster. He has little logic nor explanation for his reasoning, but I'm beginning to fear he may be correct. We're not trying to start more panic than there already is, but we want to help these people.__

__Have you gotten word of this or anything similar? I knew you to sympathize with the Broken, and it seems to be those poor fools are the main targets. I would appreciate it if you could send word back to me with any information you may have, if you have any at all.__

__For the Alliance,__

__Cragen__

She had heard nothing of any such thing, but it didn't mean it wasn't happening. It tugged at her heart strings. The Broken that lived on Azuremyst Isle were tolerated at best, with the exception of Nobundo. They were glorified slaves, only good for manual labor. She didn't often venture too near the crystal mine, although she regularly visited the Crystal Hall. She was ashamed that she avoided the people she lived so closely with. Ultimately, she was ashamed of her entire race for treating their own kind with such disdain. She had once been an outspoken advocate for the Broken, but she had accomplished little and the Broken working in the Exodar seemed content in their lowly state. It's hard to help people who don't want it. She knew though that they prized their young ones. They were their hope for the future, hope that one day their devolved physical appearance could be reversed, and that they could rejoin the ranks of the pure draenei, rather than continue to be an ugly and rejected caste.

Olivyya cringed and journeyed down the Crystal Hall to the northern most part. She soon heard the sound of mining picks and cracking crystal. She walked quietly and approached the nearest muscular male.

She cleared her throat, trying not to startle him as he swung his pick.

He turned, expecting her to command him to do something else, "Yes'm?"

"I'm-" She began to introduce herself.

"You're Olivyya," he said. "You are a skilled shaman. I know who you are."

She nodded, "I know this may seem odd, but...has anything strange been happening?"

He laughed. It was a deep guttural noise, but sounded amused, "Every day."

"What I mean to say...is...well...are you having any problems? With...the children?"

He looked at her suspiciously, in the way that the draenei generally look at the Broken. He sat down his pick, "What are you on about, Miss Olivyya? Problems among the Broken are our own. You pure draenei need not concern yourselves with our issues."

"Is it true? Are your children going missing?"

He wrapped his large and deformed fingers around the handle of his pick and turned back toward the crystal he was mining. "I need to get back to work."

Olivyya dug her hang into her money pouch, "Come speak with me and I'll pay you triple your wages for the rest of the day. If anyone gives you any trouble, tell them to speak with me about it."

The Broken looked over his shoulder, dumbfounded, but then he agreed.

As the sun set that night, Olivyya packed a bag. She would do more than just send a letter back to Cragen, she would make the journey to Shattrath. She hoped to find him sober there, and part of her hoped the culprit was simply new slave-traders, although that outcome was not the most positive. It was better than a child-snatching monster. Also, what in the world was a furbolg doing in Shattrath?

When she felt she had adequate water and bread in her sack, she picked up her shield and her great mace. Everyone was settling in for the evening and she walked confidently into the Vault of Lights, hoping no one would ask her any questions. She glanced up the stairs and saw the Prophet Valen. He seemed in deep thought and didn't notice her. She continued on into the Hall of Mystics. Without a word to anyone, she stepped into the portal to Darnassus. From there, she would make the treacherous journey into the Outland.


	4. Chapter 3

The Death Knight looked into his eyes and smiled as he drove his sword into the paladin's gut. His eyes burned green and luminous as they stood for a moment, the sounds of swords colliding and men and women dying all around them.

The Death Knight's face was mostly covered by his helm but there was something familiar in his eyes, glowing as they did with the corruption of the Lich King. The shock of his injury faded and he groaned, low and guttural, as the pain blossomed throughout his body. They could have stood there for hours, moments stretching on as recognition slowly gripped his mind.

He was going to die. And the monster that killed him … He couldn't bear to think even of the possibility, despite the fact that here they were, face-to-face.

The Death Knight's smile widened into a grin. He pushed his blade up, runed steel tearing through the paladin's sternum as though it were made of parchment. "_Dean_," the Death Knight said, his voice chilling, reverberating in the plague-heavy air around them.

The Death Knight pulled the blade from Dean's chest, blood pouring from his body onto the dead and rotting earth beneath their feet. The Death Knight lingered for a few moments more before moving on, calling a sadistic farewell behind him.

Dean struggled to breathe, the image of the sky above him, russet with decay, burning into his eyes.

He was going to die. And the monster that killed him was his brother.

"_Samuel!" he screamed. The pain was gone. So was the smell of rot._

_Dean opened his eyes, finding himself in a strange place, flat on his back on a vast white plain. There was no color here, only shades of black and white. The sky swirled above him. Someone, or many someones, whispered in a strange language that he couldn't identify._

"_Dean Winchester." A voice, low and calm, called out clear above the whispers._

_Some distance away was a tall figure: white, radiant, gossamer. Part of him thrilled to see it, while another part shrank away in terror, averted his gaze. He couldn't move. "Angel," he said. His voice cracked around the word, whether with fear or fatigue he wasn't sure._

"_Castiel," the angel replied. The angel's voice was bright and ringing, genderless and beautiful, like burnished brass, like the chiming of a bell._

"_What?"_

"_My name," the angel clarified, "is Castiel."_

"_Castiel," Dean echoed._

"_You have been resting here for hours, Dean."_

"_Where is ..." He felt as though he should know already._

"_The spirit realm," Castiel said simply._

"_Then I'm ..." It was difficult to speak or think in anything but fragments, a slowly creeping dread overtaking him, clouding his thoughts._

"_You are dead."_

"_Samuel," Dean said, remembering. His brother, who had never returned from a supply run to Tyr's Hand. His powerful and heroic brother, whose death he had prayed for because the alternative was … The alternative. Taken by the Scourge. A Death Knight. He felt the twist of his brother's blade in his chest all over again._

"_You must make a choice, Dean," Castiel continued. Regret seeped into the angel's tone._

"_What choice?" Dean asked, although he already knew. The weight of the world of the living already pressed heavy on his spirit. He had already made his decision._

"_Whether or not to press on."_

"_What happens if I choose not to?" He was finally able to look up at Castiel, levitating a few feet off of the ground. The angel's eyes held pity. It made him uncomfortable. Neither of them said anything for some time, the only sound around them the chorus of whispers._

"_There is still yet hope," Castiel said finally._

"_Hope? Who still has hope at a time like this?"_

"_There is still yet hope," the angel repeated. "For Azeroth. And for Samuel."_

_The whispers were suddenly joined by the distant sounds of mourning. Dean looked away from the angel, saw shadowy forms materializing slowly around him. The whispers faded. He could see color again. Red was the first color to return. Red all around him._

The pain returned, roughly and harshly. He gasped for breath, desperately. Air filled his empty lungs, the stench of blood and death making him nauseous. He wondered how long the battle had been over. He saw the movement of other members of the Argent Dawn off in the distance, carrying the bodies of their comrades away from the battlefield.

He angled his head up to look at his injuries, still open and bleeding. He gasped, horrified at the gaping wound in his chest. He reached into his bag for a bandage. Even the frostweave was laughably ineffective – he might have been pressing a piece of raw linen to his gut. He gritted his teeth and began to focus healing energy toward the wound. The magic was reluctant to come, and caused a different kind of hurt even as it began healing his flesh wounds. He lay in the dying grass, gasping with pain and fatigue. None of his comrades were nearby – none that were alive, anyway.

He was not a deserter. He repeated this to himself several times as he reached into his bag for his hearthstone. He found himself in the Lakeshire Inn.

Brianna told him when he woke up that he'd been asleep for nearly a day. "You owe me," she said, smiling. "For the sheets and mattress you bled all over."

"I'm sorry," Dean replied, and she shook her head.

"Don't worry about it. I'll put it on your tab." Her voice grew serious then, and she said, "It's good to see you." _Alive_, was the implication. "This came for you," she added, handing him an envelope.

There was no return address, but he recognized the seal, pressed into the golden wax on the back of the envelope. Bobby's.

_It's been months since I heard from you or your brother, boy. Normally I'd take the hint but weird things are happening in Shattrath and it'd be good to hear your opinion._


	5. Chapter 4

When Elliort Stablash returned to his home city of Orgrimmar from Warsong Gulch, after months of deadlocked fighting, he found a cloaked messenger waiting for him at the inn just inside the city. One of the guards told him the gangly blood elf had been waiting there for three days. _What would a blood elf want with me? _he wondered, as he marched inside to address the situation.

"Stablash," the messenger stood and greeted him immediately, removing the hood from his head. He had a long worn face and huge ears - huge even for a blood elf. He was old, but you could only tell by his calloused hands and his head of salt and pepper hair that he wore shorter than most other blood elves. He was otherwise untouched by normal physical aging.

Elliort, surprised by the presence of his old friend, clapped the man on the shoulder, "If it isn't Munch Lightweaver! What brings you to Orgrimmar?"

Munch chuckled and then grabbed the burly orc's forearm for a typical warrior handshake that the green-skinned man returned happily. The blood elf then said, "I'm going to Shattrath City. I heard you were coming back from the Gulch and thought I'd make a minor detour to see you."

"Minor detour?" The orc grunted in disbelief, "You must be up to something, old mage."

The blood elf remind silent for a time, but wavered under the great warrior's stare. He then confessed, "I was hoping I could persuade you into joining me."

"To Shattrath? Why would I want to go there? You know I already served my time in Hellfire and I have no interest in going back to that corrupted chunk of rock."

"I thought you'd say that, but listen, El..." Munch reached into his robes and pulled out a letter. He handed it to his friend.

Elliort took it in his huge hands, unfolded it, and read it carefully. His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. He looked back up at the blood elf. The mage had fought with him on Hellfire Peninsula, and he was really the only blood elf the orc actually trusted, despite the fact that they were part of the Horde. He thought now though that the mage's frequent dabbling in arcane magic had perhaps pushed him over the edge a bit.

Munch waited patiently for a response. He didn't much care for orcs himself, but he grew fond of Stablash. There's nothing like killing demons to form a pretty steadfast bond.

"Odafin...sounds like a night elf name to me..." was all that Elliort said.

"Well, that's because it is."

The orc ran his hand over his shorn dark brown hair that displayed a widow's peak and nicely receding hairline. He took a deep breath, trying to maintain his temper and not shout at the blood elf in public. "You want me to travel to Shattrath with you because of a request from a...night elf?"

"Yes."

"Do you know who I've been fighting in Warsong Gulch?" His voice got louder.

"Night elves."

Laughing bitterly, he said, "Playing with that arcane magic has messed with your head, Lightweaver!"

"Fin doesn't give a sewer rat's ass about factions."

"You think that he doesn't, but you probably haven't seen him have a run in with any orcs, have you?"

"El," the fair-skinned man said firmly.

"Munch," the orc said back.

The elf sighed, "You didn't like any blood elves until you met me, remember?"

"I still don't like blood elves, and you, sir, are as arrogant as the rest of them, not to mention presumptive...thinking you could come here and talk me into going to the damned Outlands to meet up with a night elf of all people!"

"What about the children?"

He grunted and crossed his muscular arms. His battered gauntlets rubbed together making an obnoxious metal on metal noise, but he didn't seem to mind. Munch, on the other hand, winced at the sound.

"Children. Refugee children," the blood elf didn't take his eyes off of the orc's stern face and he watched for any slight changes in his expression.

The gears turned in the orc's mind. He knew enough of his peoples' history to feel pangs of empathy for the refugees in Shattrath. They were shit on, and now someone - or something - was taking advantage of the fact that they went overlooked. No one cared about the refugees so they were an easy target. No one would notice if a couple kids went missing. It filled him with more and more rage, the more he thought about it. The orphans of all of these damned wars are what really got to him. They were probably being taken as well and they didn't even have families to notice. They were forgotten and uncounted, even by those who took heart for the refugees.

"Let me report to Thrall," he said with a growl. "If the Outriders need me I'll have to come back. My allegiance is to my people before you and certainly before some damned night elf."

Munch nodded, and he was careful not to reveal too much pleasure on his own face. He needed an ally for this trip. He was afraid he was going to end up a solitary Horde among a bunch of disgusting Alliance. Who better to bring along than his huge orc war-buddy? He didn't mention at all that he expected more of the Alliance to be in attendance that just the night elf rogue.

Elliort glared at him and started out. Before he left the inn, he said, "Don't think I'll work with a night elf, and don't think I'm doing this for you either, you arrogant bastard."

"Oh, I don't, you dirty orc."


End file.
